New Bacteria Study from the Journal of Periodontology

Pendant Health co-founder Dr. Eric Guirguis, highlighted a new study from the Journal of Periodontology detailing a possible link between periodontal bacteria and coronary artery disease as well as periodontal bacteria and preeclampsia.

The full article is available here. The full link is http://www.perio.org/consumer/perio-systemic.htm.

Partner for Profit

In most cases, people and companies are constantly bombarding dental practices to buy new and different products or services. As such, dental offices have become very adept at dispatching unfamiliar sales efforts.

The unfortunate by-product is that practices often miss truly beneficial opportunities.

In the June issue of Entrepreneur Magazine, there was an article (at right) on the importance of partnering with suppliers for mutual benefit. The article provides a great example of a supplier and home builder partnering to leverage their skills and expertise. The result was substantially positive for both parties.

In the dental industry, practices should embrace this concept to draw more out of insurance companies and vendors. Too often I have seen these relationships become totally 1 sided.

Insurance companies are a great example. To participate, they force feed you a fee schedule, make you jump through hoops to file claims, delay reimbursements and entangle you in phone calls just to verify benefits. For what? For the promise of potential patients.

At Pendant Health, we take a radically different approach with our practices. We research and pursue partnerships that can provide an immediate and tangible benefit to our network practices. These opportunities are made available for any network practice to utilize at their discretion...but we spend a great deal of time finding and drawing out value that our practices would not otherwise receive.

We are currently investigating several new opportunities and would appreciate feedback on our endeavors. Currently Pendant Health network practices can receive preferred pricing at dental laboratories and Darby Dental. In the near future, we hope to add a package for internet connectivity in the office, paperless document management and discounts on credit card processing.

Please send your comments or inquiries to customerservice@pendanthealth.com

Best,

Nick Partridge
Pendant Health
nick@pendanthealth.com

Patient Grabber

From the most recent issue of Fast Company, a group called Accent Health is providing flat screen televisions that run with advertisements, health care programming and specifically designed practice messages. They are actively selling this to practices with >250 patients per week. Quite an interesting innovation.

While most dental offices wouldn't qualify with such a high-traffic requirement, I thought this article was newsworthy because you can bet that sooner or later someone will introduce it to smaller offices.

The company website lists the following advantages: 1. A flat panel tv instantly updates the look and feel of a waiting room
2. It reduces distractions at the front desk because patients are more focused on the programming.
3. Patients say wait times go faster because they are pre-occupied.
4. Patients become more educated because the programming is specifically designed to provide health information.
5. Finally, Accent says that research shows patients have a better overall experience in the office because of it.

If I look at this critically, I would want a piece of the revenue pie from Accent to install this and make it available to my patients because you can't fully control the content.

From the other side, I think it is a fantastic way to provide value to patients, keep them occupied while waiting and all at no cost.

According to the article, there are over 11,200 medical offices with 140 million potential viewers. They estimate the wait time in each medical office to be 30.2 minutes. Therefore, wandering eyes can't help but catch a few advertisements. Several major companies have signed on to advertise.

For more information on Accent Health, click here.

Care to comment, just click the comments link below.

Best wishes,

Nick Partridge
Pendant Health
nick@pendanthealth.com

Welcome

Welcome to the Pendant Health Provider Blog.

At Pendant Health, we strive to provide unparalleled value to our network providers. Therefore, I am pleased to announce our brand-spankin' new Provider Blog.

This outlet enables us to facilitate greater information sharing and enhanced communication. We will present news and insight, share best practices and address critical issues facing dental practices today.

Best wishes on much continued success.

Nick Partridge
Director of Operations, DFW
nick@pendanthealth.com